This action was prompted by a particularly notorious crime, and we have mentioned it on the blog before, so here is an update.  Valerie Bauerlein reports for the WSJ:

South Carolina's Senate took a historic vote Monday to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds, as religious leaders prayed in the building's lobby, civil-rights leaders looked on from the balcony and protesters rallied outside.

The Senate voted 37-3 to approve the bill, and is expected to give final approval in a procedural vote Tuesday morning before sending the legislation to the state House. Passing the bill requires a two-thirds vote separately by both the Senate and the House.

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Republican Sen. Larry Martin, a former flag proponent, said he became convinced that a version of the Confederate flag was raised at the State House during the civil-rights era as a protest of integration, not a celebration of Confederate history. "If you want to get right down to it, it has more to do with what was going on in the 1960s than it does with the 1860s," he said.

Nailed it.  Welcome aboard, Sen. Martin.  "Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late." -- Felix Frankfurter

Update:  It's over.  AP reports the bill passed the House 93-27.